Google Tag Manager Zones: The New GA 360 Feature

A new feature has come to Google Tag Manager: Zones. This feature is currently only available on Google Tag Manager 360. We have examined the Zones, and we have prepared our analysis for you.

What do the Zones do?

Zones can make more than one Google Tag Manager container work for a single site with specific restrictions (by preference). For example, imagine working with multiple agencies using GTM. Your AdWords agent, your agent who executes your conversion optimization work, your SEO agent, or your Analytics agent may want to use GTM. Instead of authorizing them in your own container, you can authorize them in containers that you create specifically for them and then continue with the restrictions that you specify in the Label, Trigger, and Variables. For example, your AdWords agent can only manage AdWords-related tags, while your Analytics agent may have tighter restrictions. In this way, any agent will not see the container that another agency uses. For example, you can see the structure I have set up for 2 different agencies below.

There are two things we should consider in the Zones:

Conditions: Contains the business conditions of the zone we are creating. For example, if your conversion optimization agent will only process the cart page, you can add the/cart URL as a condition, thereby preventing them from affecting other pages.

Restrictions: Contains the restrictions for the Tag, Trigger, and Variable types. For example, in the zone you open for your AdWords agent, you only allow Google AdWords tags, so you restrict the changes your AdWords agent can make elsewhere.

How to create Zones? How does the container connect?

To create Zones, you need to click on the “new” button you see in the first screenshot and then name your Zone in the window that opens. You can either enter the ID of the container that you have already opened for the agency that you created the Zone in the following field or link the container by selecting the field indicated by the arrow.

How are the Restrictions determined?

After linking the container, we need to determine the conditions and restrictions. For example, we have brought a condition that can only be traded on the/cart page for the agency that will make conversion optimization. We provided the AdWords agency with only the AdWords tag, but we did not bring a page condition so that it can be processed on all pages. You can see the current restriction screens for labels and variables in the following screenshots. The restriction brought to the AdWords agency allows this agency to make changes to AdWords only.

The screenshot above belongs to the screen where we selected the restrictions we set for the Adwords agency. As you can see here, we’ve only allowed the use of AdWords-related tags on the right. In the screenshot below, we have chosen the variables that this agency can use. We didn’t have a restriction here. Well, the one that wishes can do already.

How do Zones appear in Preview Mode?

In the example above, we created a Zone for 2 different agencies. The Zone of the AdWords agency was working on every page, and the Zone of the conversion optimization agency was only on/cart. The following screenshots belong to the Preview Mode after these Zones have been selected. As you can see, both agents are active in the zone of the/cart page and both may make changes.

If both Zones are active, you can choose the container if you want to see the change in preview mode. On the top right side of the Preview Mode, you will be greeted with a screen like this.

If only one of the Zones is active, you won’t see a screen like the one above. The following screen stands out as the screen you will see in Preview Mode only if one of the two Zones is running.

Google Tag Manager Zones have been a nice development for me. At least the agencies are constantly disturbed as the subject of “know-how sharing” is resolved in some way. When linking containers here, I suggest that you only link containers under your account. This is because you can see whether the container is currently active in another account from the preview mode, Google, unfortunately, does not give the chance to “select the container for the preview” that I gave in the above example.